president's address. Ixxxv. 



the British Museum. But perhaps the first work in the order 

 of merit is Mr. \V. Gowland's admirable investigation of 

 Stonehenge. It seems established that Stonehenge was erected 

 without the use of metals, the tools having been made of flint 

 and quartzite, examples of such work being known in Japan. 

 Its date is, approximately, estimated at about 1800 B.C., and its 

 object is believed to have been connected with some form of 

 sun observance. 



Geology. 



The year 1Q02 will be ever memorable for the great volcanic 

 disturbances which took place in the islands of St. Vincent and 

 Martinique. I do not propose to trouble you with all the 

 numerous descriptions which have been already given by 

 competent witnesses of those remarkable catastrophes, but I 

 shall confine myself to the conclusions arrived at by Drs. 

 Anderson and Flett, specially appointed to make a report by 

 a committee of the Royal Society which has been published 

 in the Geographical Journal. There seems to be a remarkable 

 similarity between the islands of St. Vincent and Martinique, 

 physically speaking. Both are, roughly, oval in form, with the 

 long axis almost north and south, and the north-west portion of 

 each is occupied by volcanoes, namely, the Soufriere and Mont 

 Pel^e, which have many points in common, but there are a few 

 points of difference. The area devastated in St. Vincent was 

 considerably larger, whilst, unfortunately, the loss of life in 

 Martinique (about 30,000) was much greater. In all the 

 eruptions commencing on May 6th in St. Vincent, and not 

 determining till August 30th in Martinique, the usual phenomena 

 of mud and ashes, rain and darkness (first, so vividly described 

 by Pliny in his account of Vesuvius a.d. 79), accompanied by 

 hot and suffocating blasts, which destroyed all living creatures 

 within their sweep, were observed. By means of photography 

 Drs. Andrews and Flett were enabled to make observations 

 quite impossible before the eruption of Vesuvius in 1872 ; and 



